


armistice day

by cirrus (themorninglark)



Series: Green Light [3]
Category: Free!
Genre: Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:19:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/cirrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sousuke and Haruka talk about need, promises, and old wounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	armistice day

**Author's Note:**

> Set one year after the previous Green Light ficlet, post-Olympics/retirement.

"I know what you're thinking."

Sousuke pauses.

"I'm not, you know," he adds, his tone even.

He tries to be quiet, but he hears the lie echo in the corridor, and wonders why he and Haruka always end up like this in shadowy places.

Haruka is maddeningly, frustratingly silent; yes, the years have loosened him up, but only selectively, and Sousuke leans back against the outside back wall of the gym with his arms crossed, wishing for a cola.

Haruka doesn't even have the decency to ask _not what_. He waits. Holds Sousuke's gaze steady.

_Two can play at that game._

Sousuke has spent all his words, strained his voice to breaking over the scars he bears, and stilled his tongue, stoically, every time a needle dug into him to stitch him up again, real or imagined. The seams that run through his body are ugly.

He is a little bit smug when Haruka breaks first.

"He needs you," says Haruka.

Sousuke smiles, and he is surprised to find that he means it, just a little. Ten years ago, he'd smiled this smile, and it was tinged with maybes and melancholy; today, he has mellowed.

"I said that to you, once."

Haruka nods, and he smiles back. He's mellowed, too.

"I know," he says. "I still think you were wrong."

Sousuke feels his eyes widen. Haruka lets out a small breath that's a sigh, and an admission of culpability.

"I needed him. Not the other way around."

"Bullshit," snaps Sousuke, before he can help it. "Rin _always_ needed you."

Haruka shakes his head. "No. Rin wanted all that before he even met me. But we don't have _all that_ any more."

He pauses, speaks his next word like it is unfamiliar in his mouth, like he is unlocking a door that's been shut up for a long, long time.

"Sousuke."

And it shouldn't make Sousuke's fists clench up, the way his name sounds, but it does.

"Rin doesn't need me to shine. He shines anyway. But he needs you."

The years don't always improve a person. Sousuke, who's wished before that fucking Nanase would stop being so goddamned silent and opaque about everything, now wishes that he would shut up _shut up shut -_

"He needs you so that he knows he doesn't _have_ to shine," says Haruka, simply.

There was a time Sousuke would have said, _I don't know what you're talking about._

There was a time the abstract would have been beyond him, when he would have stretched out a hand, scrabbling for the concrete angles of some kind of hard truth he could touch.

In this time, Sousuke grits his teeth, and says, "Haru."

He doesn't say it the way Haruka says his name. He doesn't say it the way he says Rin's name, either. It's different, what they have between them; they're friends, but Sousuke's never felt the need to hide the dark part of himself from Haruka like he does from Rin.

"I can't face him," says Sousuke.

Haruka does not throw his words back in his teeth, doesn't call him out like he knows he _should_ be called out.

"He said he'd wait for me. You know that?"

"I know that," says Haruka. "He told me."

Sousuke's breath tightens. The ache in the pit of his chest is like saying _goodbye_ all over again.

"He waited, and I never made it. I never _recovered_ , Haru, I - "

"Do you think Rin really cares about that?"

Haruka's interruption is mild, a question casually tossed in the wind, and it blows cold and sharp against the fires of Sousuke's heart. Fires that never went out, fires like glowing embers that he'd tried to smother for half a decade.

Sousuke's shoulders slump. Phantom pain ebbs through his body.

Haruka reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a piece of paper, neatly folded into a square. His fingers fiddle with it, thoughtfully; for a moment he looks like he's going to flick it at Sousuke, but at the last second -

He closes the distance between them with a few steps instead, comes close enough that Sousuke could reach out, rest a hand on Haruka's shoulder, confess his vulnerability without a single word.

He keeps his arms crossed.

Haruka puts the piece of paper into the front pocket of Sousuke's jacket.

"Rin's number," he says, softly, "This way, I know you'll take it with you at least."

He steps back, and with a curt, solemn nod, turns on his heel and leaves.

Sousuke knows the border lines he's drawn in his life. He knows them well. He knows where to put his weapons down, he knows where the wounds lie and where not to touch them again. He knows how to put his guards up.

His pocket's burning up, and just like that, they're all coming down again.

 


End file.
